Alliance of Independent Authors Self-Publishing Predictions 2017

If 2016 taught us anything, it’s that predictions and polls are often wrong, but it’s that time of the year when we go all futurist here at ALLi, so here goes with my predictions for the year to come, and those of some of our members below. Please add yours in the comments.

I predict that we’ll see indie authors continue to grow in confidence and reach in 2017. More and more authors will recognize that while writing is a craft, publishing is a business, and set themselves to develop their skills across the seven processes of publishing, from editorial to rights sales.

They will learn to be good publishers — mastering those two skills, and everything in between like design, production, distribution, marking and promotion — in the same way they learned to be good writers: by exploring and experimenting, trying and failing, trying again and failing better.

We’ll see more indies asking:

What would it take for me to run a successful author enterprise? How do I best monetize my work in a way that aligns with my commercial and creative ambitions? What tools and techniques do I need? Who do I need to hire?

This will have a number of effects:

1. More Rights Sales, In More Formats & Territories

Self-publishers will begin to thrive in areas that were traditionally thought off-limits for them, notably the selling of translation rights, TV and film rights and leading the way into new international markets for English books.

2. More Focus

We’ll see more indie authors using analytics — or experience and intuition — to get a clearer understanding of how their particular readers engage with their particular work. More and more of them will add online teaching to their mix. They will spend more money on advertising but also come up with innovative pricing strategies to take their words to readers in new ways.

This will require them to focus in on what they do best and outsource the rest. We’ll see the rapid rise of a job that once was a minority occupation: Author’s Assistant.

3. More Audio and Video Book Promo

We’ll see a further expansion in the use of images, audio and video for book marketing and promotion. Facebook and Twitter have long been the dominant social media for authors but “bookstagram” accounts are on a rapid rise trajectory, as is Pinterest for authors. Readers and bloggers are leading the way in these visual media. As Facebook gets into audio and video, authors will start to get on board other media in far greater numbers.

And authors offering online education will show a rapid rise. Up to now, authors have concentrated on teaching other authors how to self-publish well. This year, we’ll see more self-publishers recognizing that books are only one way to deliver their message and expanding into new methods and media.

4. More Cross Collaboration

On a small scale, we’ll see more authors turning to each other to help promote each other’s books, as many ALLi members already do, and to give courses together, drawing on each other’s readers. On a larger scale, platforms like Story Bundle that bring authors to new audiences will rapidly grow.

5. More Formats and Platforms

As more successful authors think long-term and become more business-minded, indies will be more inclined to go wide and diversify, than to limit themselves to one format on one sales outlet. Amazon will continue to dominate market share, with Kindle Unlimited the foremost (if not the only) subscription platform. I predict they may also get into self-published music and video, though perhaps not this year, as estimates indicate they’re now investing over $3 billion a year on streaming video content have recently launched a music streaming service. They will open more brick stores and keep coming up with more great ideas.

Other providers, notably IngramSpark, Kobo, Apple and Google, and good distributors who reach out into the wider world, like Draft2Digital, will nonetheless continue to see growth too, especially beyond the US.

Massive rise in audiobook listening/sales because of Amazon Echo (Alexa) and Google Home which make it very easy to listen around your house – it has already become a fixture at our place and Alexa was the Amazon massive seller this year. I am getting more audio sorted ASAP(b) following on from that, more audio distribution options which means I won’t be going exclusive with ACX

Premium print will become a much bigger thing as POD becomes more versatile – so think about hardbacks, special editions and other collector type items for the real fans – while ebooks continue to be the main income source for indies

More machine-learned/applied AI tools for discoverability and creation of written word products – this will help with the huge amounts of content

It gets more difficult to get visible without substantial marketing budgets. KU continues to be a powerhouse and a valuable marketing tactic (especially for newer authors who do not yet have a following). KU bans boxsets. Kobo continues to grow (their promotions are invaluable for indie visibility on that store). B&N sales will continue to decline, predominantly due to their terrible end-user experience. GooglePlay’s share of the market increases. No change for iBooks unless they open up the ability to submit titles to their sudden promotions.

I really struggled to come up with a prediction and I think it’s going to be a hard year to predict. I can see eBooks growing very quickly again, but this time outside the U.S. Frankly surprised it’s not already happened in 2016.

As the market continues to evolve, and it becomes more and more apparent that it’s not possible to make a fast buck of out of self-publishing, but that it requires a huge amount of effort, time and strategic thought in addition to writing a viable book in the first place, I think we’ll see a lot of people drop out who have entered the market for the wrong reasons – leaving the field clearer for those who treat self-publishing like a profession.

Facebook is adding audio so I think we will see a lot of authors doing reading and excerpts from their books and using it as a positive way to inexpensively promote. Also I see more indie bookstores like mine (PJ Boox) bringing indies to the masses. I feel like this will be a very good year for us!

Indie predictions feel like the Death List – lots of the same things every year that never happen – and the moment you take it off the list, boom. People have been predicting the rise in bundling for years now and it’s never really happened, so if no one predicts it this year, will it take off? Likewise, I wonder if people will keep trying to work out what to do to “enhance” ebooks.

I’d love to see greater breakthrough of indie authors at big events not talking about self-publishing, but I don’t think that will happen quite yet. I’d also love to see more openness from the big prizes, but again I think that’s more than a year off.

The ebook market will surely carry on developing in many countries, and plateauing where it is already most developed, but I’m not sure we will see new trends – we know what the ebook market development curve looks like, and I’m not sure our understanding will change. Likewise, I’m not sure we’ll see much development in how ebooks are read – I don’t see any game-changing devices on the horizon. And we still don’t look like we’ll see esperesso machines in mass numbers of bookshops. I’ll certainly be interested in seeing what the next few Author Earnings reports tell us, but I don’t know what that might be.

In short, I have a wish list but my prediction is that it will be a “consolidation” year.

I agree with Dan Holloway. 2017 will look a lot like 2016 and will see the consolidation of the indie sector into something that will feel a whole lot more mainstream in the middle but will be delightfully quirky and innovative around the edges. The mainstream middle will be indies who’ve been in this for 5+ years and function as business owners with a serious income. The rest will either be gravitating toward the mainstream path or happily ignoring it, and there’ll be less arguing about which path is “right”.

Ingram Spark will make its mark in Europe BUT preparation for Brexit will create business chaos for UK publishers and self-publishers across UK/European borders, especially re printing and distributing books.

ALLi will replace [organizations like] The Society of Authors as top go-to for author advice (that’s a cheat – it’s already happened )

Is 2017 the year you join the Alliance of Independent Authors?

Now your turn. What’s in store for indie authors in 2017, do you think? Add your predictions below.

About Orna Ross

Irish indie author, Orna Ross is Founder-Director of the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), the non-profit association for self-publishers that runs this blog and self-publishing advice centre, including the free online author conference, The Indie Author Fringe. Each year since 2013, Orna has been named one of the "Top 100 people in publishing" (The Bookseller). She writes, publishes and teaches around the globe, facilitating creative writing, creative publishing and creative living. Tweet her: @ornaross.

In Australia, 2017 may well see a further opening up of both literary awards and bookshop shelves to author-published books. I base this on my own experience since my first novel’s publication last October. My wish is that Amazon would flow reviews through to all regional sites.

1) The adult coloring book fad is so completely saturated that few indie publishers in that area made any significant money during the holidays in 2016. Many will drop out, leaving room in the market for good sales later in 2017.

2) Amazon will roll out more tools to help indie authors.

3) This is more of a wish – Amazon will roll out a program similar to Amazon Marketing Services and KU for paperbacks.

4) Indie publishers who are in it for the long-haul as a career will be able to make a good living. Those are going for the fast buck will find themselves not succeeding.

God, I hope KDP start letting us make changes to our manuscripts from within the KDP dashboard – rather than having to upload the corrected one and wait for it to go live etc. That’s a wish rather than a prediction!

1.) The UK Crime Writer’s Association may open it’s doors to Indies…(but don’t hold your breath.)
2.) Amazon Prime’s new free monthly books for subscribers will be rolled out globally and the expansion of this and KU may…make things tougher for Indies to make decent sales and a decent income.
3.) Literary Agents will become more and more desperate and redundant as the year goes on.
4.) Amazon Imprints will take a bigger share of the global market.
5.) Vanity publishing will DIE.

I hope for many of these too, Karen, although I think it might be a wee bit early – I tend towards the ‘consolidation’ feeling. I don’t wish all agents gone, but the best of them will need to be looking at how they can evolve and contribute to the new landscape. The death of vanity publishing – wouldn’t that be something! I fear there will always be organisations looking to cash in on people’s dreams and always suckers who fall for it. What indies can do is continue to try and persuade writers that they’ve never needed them less.